Curated playlist

Commanders of the Order of the British Empire

J. R. R. TolkienOn his 21st birthday, Tolkien proposed by letter to a woman who was already engaged.
Elton JohnElton John sang "Candle in the Wind 1997" live only once, at Princess Diana's funeral. He wrote it days before.
Ian McKellenIan McKellen came out as gay on BBC radio in 1988, while Parliament weighed Section 28.
Christopher NolanChristopher Nolan has no smartphone and no email address. He hand-delivers his scripts to the actors he wants.
Kate WinsletKate Winslet pleaded for the part of Rose in James Cameron's Titanic while he still preferred Claire Danes and Gwyneth Paltrow. She told the director that she was Rose, and she could not see why he was seeing anyone else. The plea worked.…
Michael CaineMichael Caine took his stage name from a cinema sign he saw while phoning from a Leicester Square telephone box.
Tom HardyTom Hardy put on 42 pounds to play the English prisoner Charles Bronson. Bronson sent him his shaved-off mustache.
Richard BurtonRichard Burton, the Welsh actor born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr., once received a cable from Laurence Olivier. Olivier was shocked by Burton's affair with Elizabeth Taylor, and his message was blunt. It read: “Make up your mind, dear heart.…
Olivia ColmanOlivia Colman was born Sarah Caroline Colman, and she had to give up that first name before her career properly began. The actors' union Equity already had a Sarah Colman on its books, so the newcomer needed another. She took the name of a…
Anthony HopkinsAnthony Hopkins once delivered a seven-page courtroom speech in a single take on the set of Steven Spielberg's Amistad. The crew was astonished. Spielberg was so overawed that he could not bring himself to call the actor Tony, and he…
Kate BushKate Bush's second UK number one came 44 years after her first. That gap beat Tom Jones's record of 42 years.
Benedict CumberbatchA play titled Benedict Cumberbatch Must Die was meant as a love letter to his fans.
Barry GibbBarry Gibb wrote songs that held the number one spot on the American Billboard Hot 100 for 27 of the 37 weeks between the 24th of December 1977 and the 2nd of September 1978. Many of those records were not sung by him. He is a British and…
Sting (musician)Sting, the English musician and actor born Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, once disowned his own first name on camera. In the 1985 documentary Bring On the Night, a journalist addressed him as Gordon. He answered, "My children call me Sting,…
Jonathan PryceA drama school tutor said Jonathan Pryce would only play villains on Z-Cars. He was knighted in 2021.
Arthur C. ClarkeArthur C. Clarke never patented his satellite idea. He called a patent "a licence to be sued."
Eric ClaptonEric Clapton got the nickname Slowhand from a broken guitar string. Fans clapped slowly while he replaced it.
Stanley SadieStanley Sadie grew a nine-volume music dictionary into twenty volumes. The 1980 result needed a new name: The New Grove.
Catherine Zeta-JonesCatherine Zeta-Jones once said that with one hour of television, her life completely changed and she could not go anywhere. She is a Welsh actress, born in Swansea on the 25th of September 1969. The Zeta in her name is pronounced ZEE-tuh.…
Alec GuinnessAlec Guinness privately called Star Wars "fairy-tale rubbish" in letters to friends.
Rod StewartRod Stewart, the British singer with the raspy voice, stood on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro on the 31st of December 1994 and sang to 3.5 million people. Nobody paid to get in. That crowd earned him an entry in the Guinness Book of…
Brian MayBrian May climbed onto the roof of Buckingham Palace on the 3rd of June 2002 and played a guitar solo of "God Save the Queen." It was part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations for Elizabeth II. May, born in 1947, is the lead guitarist of the…
David LeanFilm critics spent two hours tearing apart David Lean's Ryan's Daughter to his face at a New York lunch.
Nicholas CraftsNicholas Crafts, a British economist born in Nottingham on the 9th of March 1949, spent his career trying to put numbers on one of the most famous turning points in history. The Industrial Revolution is usually told through steam,…
George MartinGeorge Martin called the Beatles' audition recording a "lousy tape" before he signed them.
Christopher LeeSir Christopher Lee was 91 years and 6 months old when his single "Jingle Hell" entered the Billboard Hot Singles Sales chart at number 22. Press attention then pushed it up to number 18, which made him the oldest person to have a top 20…
Robert PlantRobert Plant, the English singer born on the 20th of August 1948, first rehearsed stardom behind the curtains of his family home at Christmas. He was ten years old, and he was trying to be Elvis. Decades later, on the Denton talk show in…
Alexander McQueenAt Alexander McQueen's Voss show, the audience saw only themselves for over an hour. Then a glass box shattered.
William DalrympleA book on an 1839 war led William Dalrymple to brief Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He also briefed the White House.
Stephen HawkingDoctors gave Stephen Hawking two years to live at age 21, but he died at 76.
Tom StoppardTom Stoppard arrived in England knowing not a word of Czech. He fled Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia as a child.
Demis HassabisDemis Hassabis changed one letter to turn a Greek word for butcher into his surname. He later won a Nobel Prize.
Petula ClarkPetula Clark's photo was plastered on British Army tanks as a good-luck charm. She was a child singer during the Blitz.
Peter Blake (artist)Peter Blake was paid a one-off two hundred pounds for the Sgt. Pepper album cover. He has complained ever since.
Eric BlomEric Blom asked for a Bach chorale at his funeral and got Offenbach. The organist had only been told "Bach chorale."
David AttenboroughAt 11, David Attenborough sold newts to a university for three pence each.
Rowan AtkinsonRowan Atkinson played one synthesizer note, over and over, at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The moment came during a performance of "Chariots of Fire". Atkinson appeared as Mr. Bean, and the single note soon…
Helena Bonham CarterHelena Bonham Carter applied to King's College, Cambridge, and the college said no. She was rejected "because officials were afraid that she would leave mid-term to pursue an acting career." The fear was well founded. Born in 1966, she…
Edwin MuirEdwin Muir moved from an Orkney farm to Glasgow at fourteen and called it a move from Eden to Hell.
Rayner UnwinAt ten, Rayner Unwin read The Hobbit for one shilling and helped get it published.
Philip LarkinPhilip Larkin turned down the job of Poet Laureate in 1984. He felt he had long since stopped being a poet.
Sade (singer)Sade is the professional name of Helen Folasade Adu, a Nigerian-British singer-songwriter. When her new band played its first show at Heaven, a London nightclub, 1,000 people were turned away at the door. The group was brand new, and the…
Brian Cox (physicist)Brian Cox, the English physicist and musician, once admitted to a chat show host that he did badly in A-level maths. "I got a D... I was really not very good... I found out you need to practise." That grade belongs to a man who now holds…
David StarkeyHistorian David Starkey lost many honors within days in July 2020. A podcast remark on slavery set it off.
Philippa GregoryNovelist Philippa Gregory's charity has dug close to 200 wells in The Gambia.
John BoormanWhen his film got no awards campaign, John Boorman gave Oscar voters free video copies.
Naomi MitchisonNaomi Mitchison listed her Who's Who hobby as "burning rubbish." She also wrote more than 90 books and lived to 101.
Frederick CoplestonWorld War II closed Frederick Copleston's path to a Rome doctorate. He taught at Heythrop instead.
Correlli BarnettMichael Heseltine gave every Cabinet member a copy of Correlli Barnett's The Lost Victory.
Simon CallowSimon Callow's acting career began with a fan letter to Laurence Olivier. Olivier wrote back with a box-office job.